Jason Kreis has seen it all in 25 years of MLS history
Major League Soccer celebrated its 25th anniversary this week, and were it not for the coronavirus pandemic, a rematch of the inaugural game — San Jose Earthquakes versus D.C. United — would have been played Saturday.
Instead, the league is on hold, like the rest of the sports world. But former players who were around in 1996 took some time to reminisce during the week. One MLS alumnus is Jason Kreis, who is still employed by the league as Inter Miami’s senior academy director and coach of the club’s reserve USL squad Fort Lauderdale CF.
Kreis, 47, signed a contract with MLS on Aug. 1, 1995. He was drafted 43rd overall by the Dallas Burn in the fifth round. His starting salary was $30,000, which was above the league minimum of $24,000. The Burn’s locker room for training was a double-wide trailer in the parking lot of a private school in northern Dallas.
“It’s been good to re-engage, be nostalgic, have a moment to look back and remember some things,” Kreis said.
First game: Dallas Burn vs. San Jose Clash
He has vivid memories of his first game with the Burn.
“Biggest thing I remember of the first game was walking out before the match, the atmosphere, 35,000 people in the Cotton Bowl for the first ever Dallas Burn game against the San Jose Clash,” Kreis said. “To recognize you’re a part of history. The game itself wasn’t great, it was a 0-0 draw [the Burn won 1-0 in a shootout]. Not the best soccer game, but certainly one of the best experiences of my life.”
The second game, Kreis scored the first goal in Burn history. There was a transition play that involved one of Kreis’ best friends, John Kerr Jr., who had been an assistant coach at Duke University when Kreis played there and is currently head coach there. The fact that his friend assisted him on the historic goal made it that much sweeter.
Kreis went on to play more than 300 games, was league MVP in 1999 and is tied for fifth-highest scorer in MLS regular-season history with 108 goals. He says he still can’t believe how far the league has come since he started.
“The best way I can describe it is back then it was MLS 1.0 and now it’s about 5.0,” he said.”It feels to me like every five years there’s some massive upgrades to the league, from an infrastructure point of view, facilities, fields, locker rooms, stadiums, all those things have exponentially improved.
“There were no soccer-specific stadiums when we started, almost all in football venues, some fields were too small to play a proper soccer match on. Now, just about everyone has a soccer-specific stadium and their own training facility.”
MLS salaries have improved
Salaries have also changed drastic amount of money MLS players are making now is exponentially higher, there is money being invested to buy players... Those days, there was almost no money for transfer fees, so teams were looking for players out of contract that they could get for free,” Kreis recalled. “That’s a different level of player that comes out of European or South American league. Those are players that have something wrong with them. Now, MLS is paying multimillions in transfer fees.”
Kreis said he has great memories of playing against the Miami Fusion at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
“I used to really enjoy coming down and playing on that field, which was a super nice field,” he said. “Their last year they had an extremely good team. They had an unbelievable crowd for our game against them that season. It’s the same location as our new facilities, but you’d never know. It’s looks completely different.”
Now, he is back on those same grounds, overseeing Inter Miami’s youth academy and coaching the USL team. He also is the U.S. Under-23 national team coach, which would have been in the midst of Olympic qualifying for the Tokyo Games right now, but COVID-19 changed those plans, too.
Coronavirus quarantine getting to Kreis
Kreis said he enjoys wearing the three hats, and misses being on the field with his players. His USL team roster is made up of players from Inter Miami’s U19 and U17 academy teams, South Florida natives and recent immigrants (the team has four naturalized players from Cuba’s U20 national team), and a few older, experienced players such as former U.S. national team midfielder Brek Shea.
After a few weeks reaching out to players by phone and video conferencing, Kries is itching to get back to the practice fields.
“The first couple weeks were a little bit nice, got a break here and get to rest and relax after what had been a really, really busy run-up to Olympic qualification and preseason with the USL team, but 10 and 14 days in, you’re thinking, `Enough with the rest,” Kreis said. “I am ready to get back to work, and the players are, too.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 10:21 AM.